Goose Bumps
by beatgoeson654
Summary: Booth gives Brennan goose bumps and a lesson in love. One-shot, complete.


Goose Bumps

**Goose Bumps**

¡Saludos! This is the first Bones fic I ever wrote, but the second one I've posted. It simply had to… incubate… a little longer.

As for timeline, this would take place anytime season 3, probably pre-mistletoe kiss, a.k.a. reason #58 on the list of 3,498,573,475,034,598,834 reasons why Caroline Julian is my favourite ever.

So, enjoy. Enjoy it as much as I would enjoy owning the show. But sadly, I do not.

Here we go.

The lab was mostly quiet. There was some music playing somewhere, most likely coming from Angela's office. Booth stood on the platform watching his partner through narrowed eyes as she examined a leg bone and wrote something down on a piece of paper. Hodgins stood a few yards away, looking through his largest microscope and similarly jotting something down. Booth, however, had nothing to do.

They were adding to the file to hand over to the prosecutor. Now that the investigation was over, Booth's part of the case was all but done; all that was left to do now was to testify in court.

In reality, there was no reason at all for Booth to even be at the Jeffersonian this evening. But the alternative was to be at home and alone. He'd rather spend time with Bones not speaking to her than without her any day. He gave a huge sigh and Dr. Brennan stopped turning the tibia over and over in her hands. She didn't look annoyed, just mildly bewildered, as if she'd forgotten he was there, "Why are you here, Booth? It's a Friday night; I figured you'd have somewhere to be."

Booth winced and reflected for a moment on how that was no longer the reality in which he lived. He now spent nights eating takeout at Brennan's apartment or forcing her to watch classic movies or simply doing paperwork on the couch in her office.

Truth was, he really didn't have anywhere to be. It seemed that his social life had been consumed by their partnership. He couldn't even remember what he should have been doing. Before his fallout with Rebecca and the subsequent dark days of his gambling addiction, he would have been playing poker with his old army buddies. But now… nothing, presumably because he was now "married" to his "lady scientist," as his fellow agents frequently joked behind his back. Though this wasn't exactly true, in a way, it was. Plus, Booth had been able to figure out his poker buddies in a matter of games. He knew them, and he knew their own "little tells." The details didn't escape him. A few nervous taps on the tabletop, a subconscious rubbing of the temple… they were like a jigsaw puzzle he'd already completed or a book he'd read too many times.

There was no mystery, no intrigue. Whereas, the woman in front of him… her little tells were still coming to him day by day. She was a jigsaw puzzle with pieces strewn all over the living room floor, pieces hiding in places you'd never expect to find them. She was a book of infinitesimal length with pages he never wanted to stop turning, more deeply enthralled by each passing chapter.

Brennan had gone back to examining the bone while Booth examined her from a safe distance. He wasn't sure how much time had passed, but in terms of the body, Brennan had made her way up to the sternum when Angela walked in the room, heels clicking, eying his presence with interest. She knew exactly why he was here. He cursed her mentally. She really was too perceptive for her own good.

Brennan set down the bone softly as Angela passed behind her on her way to Hodgins' station. She was carrying a disc and a printout in her hand. "I have this for the file," she spoke softly and Hodgins backed away from his microscope. He looked down at the printout and then back up at her sympathetically, "I think I'd like to go home now," she said.

Hodgins nodded and shut off the desk light at his station, shedding his lab coat as he did so. Brennan stripped off her gloves and made her way between the two bodies on the tables and over to Angela, who handed her the sheet and the disc. The page was a picture of each victim, or, more accurately, a printout simulation image from the Angelator and Angela's facial reconstructions of both. Underneath those was a photograph that was undoubtedly from the wedding of the newlywed victims. It would be a clever move on the prosecution's part to include it with the evidence. Unless the jury was full of robots, they couldn't help but be moved by the poetic tragedy of the 2 lovers who had just begin their lives together.

"Look at them," Angela remarked in the same quiet voice, "They were so in love…" Hodgins placed his hand on her shoulder, a gesture meant to comfort and show his understanding as well as to convey that they could leave.

Angela nodded and looked down at the picture one last time and sighed. She and Hodgins walked off towards the exit and Booth moved from his place leaning against the railing to view the picture with his partner.

Brennan squinted down at the photograph of the smiling couple. Booth looked at it with her, standing as closely to her as he thought she would allow.

Instead of studying the photograph, however, he took to examining his partner. Her brow was furrowed. He wondered what she could possibly be thinking.

"Love," she said after a moment, repeating Angela's word to describe the young, deceased couple, "I'm not so sure I believe in love."

Booth's eyebrows shot up as he stared at his partner, and she sensed his reaction and glanced at him sideways, "Love?" he asked her incredulously, "Bones," his voice had a pleading note to it, "It's not Santa, or… the Loch Ness monster. It's not just something you can believe in or not."

She considered this for a moment, "Actually it is similar to those things in that many people carry a misguided but strong belief in their existence, when in reality…" she trailed off and turned to make her way back to the exam table when she found Booth blocking her way. He was in what Gordon-Gordon Wyatt would refer to as an "aggressive stance." This was one argument he was not going to drop until she saw things his way.

"There is absolutely no denying the fact that love exists, Bones. Okay, listen…" his eyes roamed the shiny roof above the platform as if searching for supporting evidence in the rafters.

She folded her arms at him and tried to move past him unsuccessfully, "I'm not denying that many, if not almost all people, experience a deep emotional and physical attraction to one or possibly more than one other person, but that's all it is: A release of dopamine and norapenephrine levels set off by attracting factors such as symmetrical and biological features, scent and…"

She was interrupted by a stammering Booth, "No, no, no, okay, listen, just because you can't see love with a microscope or telescope or… horoscope," he pre-emptively held up a hand to keep her from explaining to him that a horoscope was not an ocular device, "doesn't mean it's a myth," he looked her in the eyes, "You told me once that you loved your father. Explain that."

She eyed the triumphant look on his face and shrugged, "Anthropologically speaking, the link between the parents and offspring-"

Booth cut her off again, "No, not _'anthropologically speaking,' _I know you love science, Bones, but that doesn't mean you need to use science on love. It's something you feel. Now are you honestly telling me that you don't even _slightly _believe in love?"

"Yes," she stated matter-of-factly, "I don't. The emotion described as 'love' is nothing more than an illusion of an impossibly deep connection between two individuals. It's part of the mating ritual designed to perpetuate procreation ensuring the survival of the species. Love doesn't really exist in nature but it does in our culture. It's quite interesting actually..."

Booth could see her formulating the plans for her next thesis paper in her head and he waved his hands to distract her from the thought, and also to banish her answer which was still hanging in the air, "I'm not asking Dr. Brennan. I'm asking _Bones._"

Her brow furrowed again, "I don't know what that means," Booth shook his head, laughing slightly in spite of himself, and she continued, "we are one and the same."

"No, Bones. You're not. You have a heart, and you love. I saw that the day you made yourself a suspect in your father's murder to save him, because you cared about him."

"Caring and 'loving' are not the same," she used air quotes each time any form of the word 'love' showed up in a sentence, well aware that it was making Booth furious, "and the heart serves no emotional purpose; it simply regulates the flow of oxygen in the bloodstream. It does not 'love.'"

That was it. Booth had had enough of her science. And her air quotes. He had somehow reconciled a long time ago that she didn't and would never believe in God, but love? There was something devastating about finding out the woman he loved didn't believe in that very possibility. He knew he couldn't take away her science, but he could definitely take away her ability to form those maddening air quotes.

She had just finished speaking and her outstretched fingers were still in the air. He grabbed them and pulled them down and away from her, not too roughly, but hard enough that she stumbled forwards slightly, stopping just short of bumping into him.

But, she realised, perhaps it would have been better if she had. His chocolate eyes stared back at hers from mere centimetres away, and she was suddenly very aware of his delicious scent and the fact that their lips were even closer than their eyes. Her stomach fluttered ever-so slightly and she felt an unexplained shiver run down her spine and throughout her body to her fingertips. She also felt the skin on her arms begin to prickle and she knew without even looking that she had goose bumps, but glanced down anyway, in spite of herself. _"Not good,"_ she thought, and tried to look back up before Booth noticed, but he had.

The former gambling addict in him was awakened. His poker senses tingled. He couldn't have asked for a more obvious tell. "Hey Bones," he said softly, "Why do you have goose bumps?"

She looked at him, seemingly taken aback by the question. He guessed she was probably hoping he was oblivious. She cleared her throat, "Goose bumps are triggered by the limbic system of the brain which is connected to the hypothalamus and thalamus and they govern an involuntary piloerection of the hair follicles…" she didn't bother to finish. She was talking way too fast and he had already begun shaking his head again.

He pulled on the fingers he had taken captive, raising them up to show her the incriminating arm skin more clearly. He repeated his question, and could tell by the look on her very close face that she was rationalising something with herself.

It was more than likely, she mused, that her goose bumps were caused by an adrenaline rush, caused by the area in the brain that governs primitive drives like rage, sex, hunger, and fear. The goose bumps could also be attributed to an emotion-linked reflex, such as the chills one would get from beautiful music or poetry or some sort of intense joy. The problem was that all of these facts, coupled with the fact that this reaction had occurred due to her nervous excitement caused by her proximity to Booth let to a disturbing but inescapable conclusion for the scientist who believes not in love.

She was also aware of the fact that lying to an FBI Special Agent was rarely the right decision and that telling him the truth in this situation could be catastrophic to their partnership.

Booth watched her apprehensively as the seconds lengthened and she didn't move away. The silence was lengthening and the urge to kiss her grew stronger with each soundless second, a silence that seemed to intensify when she stopped thinking and met his eyes again, her breath catching in her throat as she did so. His eyes had grown darker, more serious, more dangerous. They both were expecting some sort of interruption, but none came. They both waited.

He just needed her to break the silence to break the spell. Any word from her lips would remind him that this moment was real, and doing what he was thinking about doing would be a real mistake. Any word, just a single word…

"Booth," she breathed finally, not sure what she was going to say next.

"_Any word,_" he had thought. Except for that word.

In an instant his lips were on hers, brushing them tentatively, softly. Her eyes slid shut and the rational voices in her head shut up completely, filling her head with a delightful absence of sound.

Encouraged slightly by the fact that he hadn't received a knee to the groin or something worse, Booth deepened the kiss, losing himself completely in the moment. He tasted her, felt her, ached for her, realising fully just how much he really needed her.

He dropped her hands and his hands moved under her lab coat to that same familiar spot on her back, one layer of fabric closer than usual. Her freed hands slid up his chest, gripping his lapels gently at first, then harder as the kiss grew more intense.

Brennan had kissed guys before, of course, and it was always pleasurable – it was supposed to be. It was a prerequisite to those "biological urges" Booth hated so much to talk about. But she realised immediately that kissing Booth felt unlike any kiss she'd ever had before. This went beyond mere physical satisfaction. She felt pleasantly unsettled. It was simultaneously a soaring sensation and the feeling one gets when they miss a step going down stairs. And then there was a tightness in her chest that made her realise where they must have gotten the saying "tugging on the heartstrings," one like she felt when she hugged her father after his trial, because, well, she cared for him immensely. Booth would say she loved him. And if that was Booth's definition of love… well, then… she supposed that she loved Booth too, per his definition of the word.

Another whole flotilla of steamboats had passed when Booth finally let his lady scientist go. He had to make a conscious effort now to breathe. He had felt love in that kiss. He needed some way of knowing that she had too. He opened his eyes to see that she hadn't yet opened hers. He gave a small smile. That was a good sign, for sure.

He was trying to think of the right words to say when she saved him the trouble, her eyes opening finally. She tried to keep the tremor out of her voice, "I've told you my definition of love. I'd like to hear your explanation."

He was a little surprised, but took it in stride, "I don't think it has an explanation. It's something you feel. Some things are just so magnificent that they…"

"…defy explanation," she finished, "I understand now."

He grinned widely, too happy to speak, hoping that nodding would suffice.

"Okay," she said. It was all she needed to say.

This time, _she_ kissed _him_. She needed to feel that again… that magnificent, glorious feeling that she was flying and falling all at once. If that was love… she never wanted to be without that ever again.

With him, she somehow knew, she'd never have to.

**So…**** feedback?**

**It would be great to hear what you guys think. :D**

** kle**


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